Canniste
by leafgreenflower
Summary: Once, Gabriel was an undersized teen in a small seaside town. His accidental friendship with warmhearted Leon Fabron, the auto mechanic's son and martial artist, did a lot to build the powerful, cane-wielding, intimidating fashioniste we know today. Prequel to "Tireur and Tireuse", rated T for martial arts and teenage shenanigans (oh, shenanigans).
1. Loving the Alien

_A/N: This is a prequel of sorts to my story Tireur and Tireuse. You can read either without the other, but after this is done I'll be putting a bonus chapter up on T &T which will relate to this story. Canniste will only be a handful of chapters at most._

 _While I've researched a fair bit for this, I am borrowing liberally from my own teenagerhood in the 80s, which was in a different country and a different language. Apologies for the things I've unwittingly put in that were different in 1980s France. Also, in Astruc-style, I'm not playing strict with the timeline – this story happens somewhere in a generic mish-mash of the mid-80s rather than an exact year._

 _I do not own Miraculous or its characters. I do own more 1980s music and makeup than I should admit. Because, goshdarnit, makeup then was much more interesting. The music, well, not so much._

* * *

The boy walked quickly down the street, arms wrapped around his new record. David Bowie's Tonight album was something he'd been wanting for ages. His eyes flickered across the street, where a couple of other boys were hanging around. This seaside town was nice, much nicer than Paris to spend summers in, but he couldn't say the same about some of the teenagers who lived here all year round. And oh look. They'd noticed him. Uh-oh. Gabriel debated changing his pace, but that might draw the attention of more of them. Maybe if he was lucky they weren't feeling like he was worth their trouble today. And maybe his skin had turned blue when he wasn't looking. Not for the first time, Gabriel wished he was sixteen already. His mother promised him he'd start getting tall around then. Now, however, he was still shorter by more than a head than all the other boys his age. And apparently, today he was also not lucky.

"Whatcha got, Squirt."

Gabriel looked up at the boy in front of him and held the record a little tighter.

"It's a record. Excuse me."

The two boys hooted. "Excuse me! Excuse me!", they mimicked. "What kind of a stuck up priss are you?"

They were too close to the wall. Gabriel wasn't going to be able to duck by them easily. He knew from experience that stepping backwards cemented him in their tiny little minds as prey. Standing his ground was the only option.

Pity it wasn't a very good one. Maybe, if he was very lucky, the record would stay intact.

"Ooh, there's a boy on the front. With makeup on. Like that sort of thing, do you?" The second boy joined in. "Wish you were wearing some too, priss?"

Gabriel rolled his eyes. "They all do that at the moment. All the good musicians."

"What's the matter, are you too cool for us, priss?"

Forget luck. The way this looked to be shaping up, the record would stay intact, but get scratched too deep to play. He shouldn't have rolled his eyes. It was hard not to.

The boys took a step towards him, cutting deep into his space. Gabriel braced himself.

Then they stepped back again, looking over his shoulder. A mellow voice from behind him said "Hey, lads. Is there a problem?"

Gabriel knew of Leon Fabron, the auto mechanic's son, but hadn't met him before. It turned out that up close he, well, _loomed_. More than a fifteen year old should. The boys in front of him weren't immune to it, but they didn't cower away either. Pity. Instead, they doubled-down on their belligerence.

"The priss here was saying some things he shouldn't", one of them said, coming too close again and leaning into Gabriel's face. Gabriel held position, unsure whose side the newcomer was going to be on.

Leon stepped forward, just a little – almost only a changing of weight rather than an actual step. He didn't even reach out, really, just shifted the way his arm was hanging. The boy in Gabriel's face moved back a full step. Leon took an actual step forward, turning slightly and looming just a little more. The two boys moved back with him. Three steps later they had their backs pressed against the side wall, unable to retreat any further, looking a little scared. Leon stood directly in front of them. He hadn't raised his arms from his sides. He said "Maybe you should let him go listen to his record."

Gabriel took this as his cue, and bolted past them for home.

He clattered across the wooden verandah of their summer house and inside. The curled-iron screen door banged closed behind him. His mother was in the middle of the living room, looking at two records. "Hi, Gabriel. In a rush? I can't choose. Musique de Incas? Or Marlene Dietrich?"

"I just bought a new record. Can I put it on?"

She sighed. "More of that terrible noise? All right. But I get next choice." She grinned at him. He grinned back, and carefully lifted the record out of its paper sleeve, setting the record player's needle to the start of the first track. The familiar intro to "Loving the Alien" filled the room, mixing a little oddly with the smoke from the little cone of patchouli incense on the fireplace mantel. His mother picked up a broom, and handed it to him. "Here. You can sweep up while you listen. If you're hungry, I made granola bars this afternoon." She drifted into the kitchen, humming along with the song. As Gabriel started sweeping, she called back "Your dad rang. He won't make it down this weekend. There's some kind of special Mini-tel sale on that he has to stay in Paris for." Gabriel shrugged. It wasn't unusual. His dad came down for as many summer weekends as he could, but life as Mini-tel's top salesman kept him pretty busy. Mostly it was just Gabriel and his mother enjoying the seaside life, and Gabriel was OK with that. It's not like his dad was around much when they were in Paris anyway. His mind drifted back to the walk home – the run home – and the surprise intervention of Leon Fabron. Good manners said he should thank Leon. Gabriel's parents insisted on good manners. He'd have to go find the other boy. And maybe find out how he'd done that thing with backing the boys against the wall.

But not today. Not before the record finished. He closed his eyes for a moment, imagining himself on Bowie's stage with the strange characters of the video clip arranged around him, and smiled.


	2. What's Class Good For

The auto workshop was full of noise. A car was being jacked up on the main hoist, someone was cutting metal at a bench in the back. Someone was yelling. Gabriel's timid knock on the frame of the giant roller door went unheard. But the man controlling the hoist saw him and nodded to wait a minute. When the jack screeched to a halt and quieted, he called over "You after Leon?" Gabriel nodded, not trusting anything he said to be heard. "Figured", the man grinned, wiping his forehead and accidentally smearing some grease across it. "You look too young to be bringing us in a car you've wrecked." He half-turned and yelled. "LEON! OUT THE FRONT!"

A door on the side wall opened, and Gabriel could see a small office inside. Leon stuck his head out, looking around curiously, then saw Gabriel. He smiled, and waved Gabriel over.

"I just... wanted to say thanks for yesterday", Gabriel said once the door had shut behind them and blocked out the noise. Leon laughed. "Wasn't a trouble. Those idiots go looking for a fight fairly often. But they back down real quick when someone their own size shows up."

"It wasn't your size though", Gabriel said hesitantly. "I was watching. You moved, and they had to move." He paused, then said in a rush "I want to know how you do that".

Leon looked at him thoughtfully. "You were watching, huh? Can you tell me what I did?"

Gabriel opened his mouth, then closed it again. "I'm... not sure."

"It's called controlling the space", Leon said. "It's one of the things my dad teaches in his savate de rue classes."

"Savate de rue?"

"It's a martial art. Real French fighting. Forget The Karate Kid, this is what the sailors used to fight with down at the harbour." He nodded in the direction of the ocean. "These streets have seen a lot of it over the last few hundred years." He looked a little rueful. "Dad makes me do it because it's traditional and he likes that kind of thing. But it's pretty useful too."

"Yeah."

There were a few moments of silence. Then they both spoke at once.

"Hey, do you want to.."

"Hey, do you think I could..."

They looked at each other and laughed. It was an unexpected moment of hilarity, a free and easy feeling that caught Gabriel by surprise. Leon said "How about I introduce you to my dad, then we go out the back and I show you the gym?"

Anton Fabron was out the front talking with a customer – someone who had indeed wrecked their car – so Leon just took him into the break room. There was a stained sink, even more stained coffee cups, a dodgy sofa in front of a tiny TV, and girlie pictures on the wall with a magazine poster of Brigitte Bardot in pride of place. Beyond, one of the workshop's back rooms had been converted to a makeshift gym, with some mats on the floor made from strips of old tyres. Some high windows were open, but the sea breeze had to make its way in through the back door. There were a couple of punching bags hanging from the I-beams. "This is it", Leon said. It smelt like sweat, rubber, canvas and leather, with a touch of seaweed in the humid air. "I don't mean to be rude", and now Leon sounded almost shy, "but by the looks of it you could really use learning some of this stuff."

Gabriel looked at him, catching the unspoken thought. It was true he needed to learn how to do this. But that wasn't the only reason Leon was asking. It seemed he wasn't the only one surprised by a sense of friendship, as if they'd been meant to know each other all along. There was a warmth to it that was unlike anything else in his life, and it was compelling. He smiled. "I'd like that. Think your dad will let me join you?"

* * *

Gabriel rued those words So. Many. Times.

Anton Fabron was impatient. Impatient with anyone who wouldn't work hard, with anyone who refused to learn. Living up to his expectations was hard work. But he was honest and free with his praise, and didn't set anyone to do anything that they wouldn't be able to do if they tried that little bit harder. In that, he was rather different than Gabriel's own father. At the end of each summer day several of the men and apprentices from Anton's Workshop scrubbed off the grease and put on boxing gloves, filling the little room at the back with punches, kicks, general heckling and litres of sweat. They often spilled out into the parking lot at the back, especially if the sea breeze was late and the air hung hot and muggy and still. There they'd practice drills amongst the cars, never taking it seriously and yet always taking it seriously. One day Leon mucked up a basic drill, and his dad called him for twenty pushups. As soon as he was on the ground, a grinning apprentice ran over with a piece of exhaust pipe and put it on Leon's back. Then someone else ran over with a camshaft pulley. And then a wrench. Soon there was a pile of spare parts and tools on Leon's back as he pressed up and down, with a hubcap teetering on the very top. Leon was struggling, but he persisted.

"Nineteen! Twenty!" Anton yelled. The watchers burst into cheers as Leon sank down to the ground for the last time. Anton looked pleased, and started to reach down to give Leon a hand up. Then the teetering hubcap fell off, and landed on his foot. He leapt and swore briefly, as everyone burst into laughter. When Leon was back on his feet, Anton clapped him on the shoulder. "I knew you could do it", he said quietly. "Good work." Then he looked around at the others. "Well? If you're not putting all these parts away then you should be drilling! We'll get the staffs out in a minute!" Everyone hopped back into their work.

Gabriel took his chance. He'd been waiting for a while to ask.

"Anton", he said carefully, "is there any chance I could train with a cane instead of a staff?"

Anton looked him over. "Why not a staff? Canes are for hoity toity types."

Gabriel straightened his shoulders. "They're for city gentlemen. Which is what I am, most of the time".

"What your parents want you to be, you mean."

He let that one slide by. "It's something you can carry on the way to or from a high society party. I could use that."

"High society?" Anton laughed. "We're a long way from high society here."

"I know", and Gabriel tried not to sound rueful. "But..."

"But nothing. Canes are a waste of time. You can find a staff to hand anywhere. A broom, a rake, one of those stop signs that keeps getting run over down near the shops. "

"Staffs have no class!"

His outburst left a shocked silence across the lot, and everyone turned to look.

Anton just raised his eyebrows. "Class? What is class good for?"

"Is-s-sn't it ob-b-vious?" Gabriel stuttered, taken aback.

There was another outburst of raucous laughter, this time directed at Gabriel. Anton turned, and headed for the workshop door, correcting a stance or punch as he went past drilling pairs. Behind him, Gabriel stood white-faced. Leon put a hand on his shoulder. "Gabe", he said. "You tried. But I don't think he really gets how different the world you come from is. All he knows is", and he gestured around vaguely, "this place".

The smaller boy sighed. "And this place is fine. It's just... I have to go back at the end of the summer." Back to a place where manners are everything, perfection is demanded and every tiny thing is judged. And where nobody of any consequence would carry a big stick. It went unspoken, but was heard by his friend, who just said "I know". He tugged on Gabriel's arm. "Come on, let's skip the end of training and get a drink. _Les Brigades du Tigre_ is on re-run." Sitting in the little break room with a can of cola in each of their hands, watching an old episode of their favourite show on the tiny TV and talking about the fight scenes, Gabriel realised. That was the thing about Leon. He did know. It was Gabriel who couldn't put into words why something so essential to his life as "class" had to be there.

He struggled with the question for the rest of the summer, training dutifully with the staff but never with delight. One day, as the start of the school year neared, he was walking home alone from the workshop, down the same street where he'd met Leon. He was lost in thought over the latest move he'd been trying to learn, when he walked into someone.

"Watch where you're going, squirt."

Oh no. Idiots at twelve o'clock. He'd forgotten to pay attention. This time, there was just the one. But a quick glance told Gabriel that there were others watching, who'd join in if it got interesting. He met the boy's eyes. To his surprise, he didn't have to look upwards quite as much as he had at the beginning of the summer. He altered his stance just slightly, remembering something Leon had drilled him on during some of their lazy afternoons just hanging out in the break room, and leaned with his hip just a little. The boy subconsciously shifted his weight back. Gabriel took a step forward, leaning a shoulder as if rebalancing his weight before a punch. The boy stepped backwards. Three steps later, and the boy was backed against the wall. Gabriel looked at him and said "I will." Then he walked off towards home, trying to look perfectly casual.

Nobody followed him.

His mother was dancing around the loungeroom to Musique de Incas when he came in through the screen door. "Mother", he said, walking over and turning the volume down a little, "can we talk?"

* * *

In the end it wasn't too hard to persuade his mother that they should catch the train back here for a weekend every few weeks during the school year. She had less patience than his father did for all of the social gatherings that their rising wealth had begun bringing them invites to. His father saw personal connections as invaluable, and insisted his whole family make them. His mother was willing, but Gabriel knew she much preferred watching the sunset over the beach. Gabriel had learnt enough from his father to know that if his love of design was to come to anything as a career, he'd need those connections to make it big. But... there was also an auto workshop that had begun to feel like a third home, with a friendship in it that felt like warm fires and deep earth.

So, in his weeks in Paris, he paid attention at school. He pasted on the perfect smile as he accompanied his father to a party or to a fundraiser. He was respectful to older women, and deferent to his father's peers. He spoke gently to their daughters, who were also learning to hide their boredom, and wondered how many generations of people had done this because they thought they had to. He thought about class as he escorted a young lady around a dance floor, and what it meant to have it. He watched the young ladies, less for their masks they wore as faces and more for the colour and movement that they wore, the only thing that they expressed hints of true pleasure and real smiles over. Every second weekend he and his mother spent a few hours on a train, going over his homework and talking about the ideas of life. He began carrying a sketchbook with him on those rides, filling it with scenes he saw or remembered while his mother drew fairy tales and fantasy lands in her own sketchbook beside him. And then Leon would meet them at the station, and the world would shift again.

It was on such a train ride back to Paris that something clicked. And then Gabriel had a most excellent idea. He asked his father politely if he might be permitted to accompany him to that week's high-society fundraiser, an animal welfare charity event. His father assumed it was about a girl, and Gabriel didn't correct him. After all, he was technically right.

As Gabriel smiled at the usual throng, his eyes searched for one person in particular. She didn't love the spotlight, but this cause usually drew her out to use her fame on behalf of others. And... there she was. He took a nervous breath, and walked over to Brigitte Bardot.

"Excuse me", he said politely. "I was wondering..."

It cost him rather a lot of the allowance he'd saved, in the form of a donation to the animal welfare charity hosting the event. But it was worth it to see Anton's face a week later, as he opened the giant paper package to find a large board-backed poster portrait of Brigitte Bardot in her famous "sex kitten" pose, with "To the boys at Anton's Workshop, XX Brigitte" scrawled across it in permanent marker. The workshop erupted in cheers and whistles. Anton beamed. "This is going in the break room!". One of the mechanics rushed ahead to take down the magazine poster so the new photo could go straight on the wall. They all stood back, as much as they could in the tiny room, and admired it. Anton elbowed him. "How'd you swing this, lad?"

Gabriel smiled. "Class. Turns out it's good for using on behalf of your friends."

Anton looked at him, and Gabriel met his eyes without flinching.

"Come with me", Anton said. He led Gabriel into the gym, and opened up a box of equipment, digging around at the bottom until he found what he wanted. He pulled out a cane, chestnut wood looking a little the worse for wear.

"Here", he said. "I guess if you're going to go to fancy parties with movie stars, you can't be carrying a flipping huge stick around with you."

He handed the cane to Gabriel. "Don't mistake me. You're going to work harder with this than you did with the staff. This is not the easy option."

Gabriel took it and nodded. "I know."


	3. Le Roi!

"Le! Roi! Le! Roi! Le! Roi!"

The two teenagers swayed down the street, arm over each other's shoulders, chanting at the top of their voices. Many of the people who saw them were amused. Some joined in the chant, eyes bright. The mood in the seaside port town was upbeat. How couldn't it be, after that goal by Platini?

"Gabe, Gabe, GabeGabeGabeGaaaaaaabe!" Leon drawled, voice husky from yelling at the little TV until their throats were raw. "Gabe, icecream."

Gabriel looked over to the icecream shop on the corner, and the girls sitting outside. "Icecream? You mean girls, right?" He laughed, which turned into a tickling cough. "Yeah, ok. Icecream." He steered their exhilarated careening steps towards the shop. And the girls. Two summers on and the two boys were the same height now, but where Gabriel was still scrawny and light-weight, Leon had filled out in muscle. Some of the girls had noticed, and Leon never minded them noticing. Gabriel preferred to stay polite but distant. He'd rather a girl he saw every day than only on the occasional weekend. And none of the girls here really had any kind of spark that drew him.

At school the next Monday, Gabriel carefully pulled out a piece of newspaper and unfolded it. There was a large photograph of Platini in full flight, ball just at the end of his foot, kicking that goal in carbon black and white. Or another kick, Gabriel was cynical enough to assume that any good photo the paper had taken would be pressed into service for this moment. Around him, the other art and design students worked on their visual diaries or their Pop Art-inspired screen printing project. Gabriel's project was half done, almost ready for cutting into a screen, but... he unclipped the pages, and moved them to the back of his file. He had a better idea. His teacher looked over his shoulder. "Platini fan?"

"Isn't everyone?"

"You seem like less of a sporting type than some others I could think of. So, what's your plan with this photograph?"

"I thought maybe I could cut it out, add some lettering for his name, and print it onto the back of a sweatshirt." He added hastily "Reuse of popular imagery of pop icons", just in case the teacher thought it was off topic.

The teacher hummed. "That's going to be a mighty hard print to cut." He turned to the class. "Listen up, guys. More than one of you are using newspaper photos as part of your design. Now for some of you, the block-style of a hand-cut screen is going to be the most effective way to repeat your idea, especially if you're repeating the print in a pattern. But if it's a one-off or at most a two-off... let me show you something." He went over to his workbench and rummaged until he found a screenprinting frame, and passed it around the class. Several of them oooohed. Gabriel felt like doing so too when the frame reached him. A woman in Art Nouveau styling flowed across the screen, feathers trailing, fabric draping. It was a complex, highly detailed, tight design, and it wasn't cut paper. "This is relatively new stuff", the teacher said, gesturing them over to his workbench and getting out some ink and paper, "at least in schools. It's a special paper that you put into a photocopy machine. Photocopy your image onto it, it melts away wherever the black would have been, and there's your screen." He dropped some ink onto the screen and squeegeed it across, then held up the print. The woman leapt out at them, clear in every detail, eyes looking straight out of the page, gradations of shade on the feathers dropping from her hand. It struck straight into Gabriel's heart in some way he couldn't grasp. The art teacher grabbed a second piece of paper and put the screen on it. "They're not very robust though, so you only get one, maybe two uses out of it." He held up his second print. You could still make out the detail, but the edges were a little fuzzier, the eyes less precise, the feathers more a blurred impression. Gabriel looked back at his newspaper clipping of Platini, and smiled.

Over the next two weeks in class he carefully assembled his image. He looked through the Letraset catalogue and carefully chose a lettering style and size that would complement the photo and fit into an A4 piece of paper, then ordered it. He cut the figure of Platini out and placed it with an almost Japanese sense of assymetrical space, so that it seemed to be taking flight across the frame, and made careful notes about how and why he'd done so in his visual diary. When the Letraset arrived, he spent two hours planning, double-checking and then carefully pressing out the letters onto the image, leaving no part of of any letter still on its backing paper, kerning by eye. It was easy enough to get a sweatshirt in a deep royal blue in Leon's size. Harder to get a properly-opaque fluorescent red fabric paint that wouldn't turn see-through as it dried, but a test run with a simple block print on some black fabric confirmed he had the right stuff. The teacher took him up to the staff office to use the school photocopier, carefully supervising to make sure they didn't jam the machine and have to use more than one of the precious thermal sheets. He attached it to a sturdy frame, laid out the sweatshirt face down so the print would go on the back, and took a deep breath.

One shot at this. He knew he was good, but there was always that little bit of randomness in the way a print came out. He wasn't going to get to do a test run to make sure he was happy with the image, or more than one run and choose the best – the first run _was_ the only one he'd get at full detail, and every run after that would become less detailed, less crisp. Plus he only had one sweatshirt. Maybe he should have planned for error.

No, that was unnecessary. There would be no errors now.

He tapped out just the right amount of paint – navy blue across half of the top of the frame, and fluorescent red across the other half – readied the squeegee, took another deep breath, and _dragged_.

When it dried, it was perfect.

* * *

 _ **A/N:** Hands up if you ever used Letraset! As a side note, the main artwork I exhibited from my final year of highschool used both this thermal screen printing and Letraset, amongst several other techniques and hand-drawn parts. I know the pain firsthand :-) As another side note: the colour scheme Gabriel chooses might sound eye-tearing by today's terms (though I like it), but it was perfectly on-trend about six months to a year after he makes this. Officially released in marketing style guides and everything (not that I know this first hand, noooooo... oops...). He's got the eye for what's coming._

 _ **Reviews:** thanks, Wolfrunnerable12 :-) I like savate too. The linked story to this one, Tireur and Tireuse, has Marinette and Adrien learning it. I was originally going to use Kali Sikaram, but when researching martial arts in France I couldn't go past the various styles of savate! It seems obvious in the show that Gabriel at some stage both trained with a cane, and learnt those techniques of space control that savate does so well. _


	4. Quant On Makeup

Leon's and Gabriel's birthdays were a week apart, and one of Gabriel's weekends south fell right between the two. Gabriel had his sweatshirt for Leon wrapped and in his backpack. But Leon for some reason insisted that they go back to Gabriel's house and hang out, instead of at the workshop.

"Here", Gabriel said, handing Leon the package with a grin. "I made this for you." Leon shredded open the wrapping and pulled out the sweatshirt. His jaw dropped. "Wow. This is mint! You made this?"

"Yep. At school."

Leon ran a finger over the design, grinning from ear to ear. "A Platini sweatshirt! This is amazing!" He shrugged off the stained windcheater he was wearing and put the new one on, then posed. "Hey, when you become a super famous clothes designer, maybe I can be your model!" He stood up on Gabriel's bed and strutted for two steps before losing his balance on the springs and catfalling off. They both laughed.

Then Leon reached into his backpack and pulled out a carefully-wrapped brown paper package. Book-shaped. Gabriel raised an eyebrow at him.

"This is for you", Leon said, "but you have to give it back".

Gabriel laughed and punched him in the shoulder. "You idiot, you just want to look at the ladies". Then he started ripping off the paper. In the same moment he realised two things: that it wasn't a girlie mag, and that Leon wasn't laughing with him. He looked up. "Quant on Makeup? This is amazing!"

Leon's face was a study in mixed emotions. "I meant it", he said, reaching out and opening the book to show a stamped and dated library slip glued inside the front cover. "You have to give it back."

There was a moment of silence, while they looked at each other, one stunned, the other red-faced. Then they both burst out into peals of laughter.

"I can't believe you got this for me!", Gabriel said finally, when they could both breathe again.

Leon looked sheepishly at the floor. "I didn't dare buy it at the bookshop. It was hard enough finding a time when I could ask the librarian to order it in for you without anyone overhearing me". Gabriel heard, unspoken, the "without anyone telling my dad". He also knew that this book would have been expensive, possibly way more than Leon could spend without his father noticing. He reached out and slung an arm over Leon's shoulder. "It's fantastic", he said. "I'll have to check it out again on my card."

"It is on your card. I nicked your library card out of your wallet last time you were down."

They both burst out laughing again.

The two boys spent nearly an hour looking through the book. Mary Quant's detailed instructions on how to achieve each look intrigued Leon much less than Gabriel, but he loved watching his friend get excited about each new idea. When the last page was turned, Gabriel's fingers lingered on the back cover for just a moment, eyes lost in thought. Leon called it his "designer thing". Then he shook himself, hid the book under his mattress, and they headed off back into town.

Leon got compliment after comment on his new sweatshirt as they walked to the auto workshop. He answered each one with a bit of a pose, always saying that it was Gabriel's design. He usually followed this with an elbow to Gabriel's ribs. By the time they reached the workshop, Gabriel was feeling a bit bruised. It was a relief to sink down into the old, worn sofa.

Anton and one of the other mechanics wandered in. "Happy birthday, Gabriel!" he said. "Leon, what are you wearing?" Leon immediately jumped up and turned around so they could see the design, shouting "Le Roi!". Anton stuck his head back out of the break room door, into the workshop, and said "Hey, fellows. Check out what our Gabriel made for Leon!". A couple of the others nearby put down their tools and came in to look. There was a cheer, and some shouts of "Platini! Platini!". Anton beamed at them both. Then his 2IC, Stephane, asked "So what did Leon get you, Gabe?"

The two boys froze, looking at each other, mirth turning cold in their throats.

Gabriel's poise reasserted itself. "He got me a book". He met Anton's eyes but couldn't hold them, and flickered his glance away for a moment. It was completely an accident that he glanced up at the photo portrait of Brigitte Bardot, amongst the girlie mag posters on the wall. The mechanics didn't miss it, and burst into howls of laughter. Anton scowled. "Was that the brown paper packet I saw in your bag earlier? You are too young for such things, Leon! How did you get it?"

Leon blushed. "I... told them it was for a friend".

The room exploded with more hoots. Anton sighed, and left the room. The other mechanics didn't stop grinning at the two red-faced teenagers. Leon was clapped on the shoulder a few times. Finally Stephane said "So, can we have a look?" Gabriel, still a little stunned, said "No, it's at home under my mattress". The laughter redoubled.

Later, after the two boys had made their escape from the congratulations and the requests for Leon to acquire more, they made their way down to the fisherman's jetty. They found a spot out of hearing of the old men at the end, leaned over the railings, and laughed with relief and craziness until they couldn't stand up any longer.

* * *

 _A/N: Fun fact: the book Gabriel gets for a present, "Quant On Makeup", was one of my favourite books around then. I must have checked it out of the library at least eight times and gone over every page over and over again. If you've never come across Mary Quant or her work, look it up. I dare you to study her makeup styles from the time, and watch the video clip of "Loving the Alien" by David Bowie mentioned in the first chapter of this fic, and not start to see what's influencing the look of all those akumas._

 _Reviews: Thanks, TheSilverHunt3r, glad you're enjoying it. There don't seem to be a lot of stories featuring Gabriel around, but I wanted to write this one because I find the multiple sides of his designer persona fascinating. He's very much a character where so much about him is implied but never said. I totally have this headcanon where he was almost as much of a cinnamon roll as a teenager as Adrien is now._


	5. Hot Pink and Polaroid

"Come on, Gabe. It'll be ace!" Leon leaned across Gabriel's kitchen counter, waving the phone receiver in one hand. "Besides... she's got a twin siiiiiissssterrrrrr!" He waggled his eyebrows.

Gabriel just shrugged, closing his sketchbook in resignation. "It doesn't matter what I say here, you're dragging me along anyway, aren't you." He tapped his fingers on the cover, still thinking about the design he was trying to finish for his portfolio.

Leon grinned at him, then spoke into the phone. "He's in. Can we pick you up?" The muffled tinny voice on the other end seemed to indicate agreement. "We'll see you soon then", Leon said. "Bye!". There was a pause. "Bye to you too". Another pause. "No, I say bye last".

Gabriel reached out, pulled the receiver out of Leon's hand, spoke into it. "Celine, we need to go or we can't come pick you up." He hung the phone up, back into the cradle on the wall, despite Leon's attempts to get it back.

After the movie, the four teenagers piled back into Leon's car. He'd spent most of his final year of school building it, working on the engine during his manual arts classes and working on the body out the back of his father's workshop on the weekends. Now school was out, for all of them, and they had a few precious weeks of summer to celebrate. "Let's go up to the lookout", Celine said, leaning into Leon's arm. Aurelie looked away.

The lookout was a favourite hangout spot. You could drive up to the top of the hill and park, looking out over the lights of the town below, along the sweep of the harbour and out across the sea. Many hopeful dates ended up here, earning the spot the nickname of "Make-out Point". The foursome hopped out of the car and went over to the old stone wall, leaning on it to look at the view. Leon cautiously slipped an arm around Celine, who didn't seem to mind. Aurelie and Gabriel looked at the lights rather than at each other.

Down below the wall, someone had thrown, or dropped, or tossed over, an old TV. Broken glass shone in the moonlight, and its rabbit-ears antenna hung limply to the side. Gabriel considered the TV for a moment, then swung himself up and over the wall, dropping down to it. He unscrewed the two antenna pieces, and clambered back up the hill to the wall. It was taller than his head on this side. As he began to climb up, Leon leaned over.

"Hello there!" he said. "Slow going?"

"Look, I don't mean to be rude, but this is not as easy as it looks. So I'd appreciate it if you didn't distract me."

Celine giggled. Aurelie snorted.

Gabriel pulled himself over the wall and tossed one of the antenna pieces to Leon. "You seem a decent fellow", he said. "I hate to kill you."

"You seem a decent fellow", Leon replied with a huge grin, pulling the antenna rod out to its full length. "I hate to die". The two boys took up fencer's positions and began acting out Inigo and Westley's fight scene, to the amusement of the two girls.

"How many times have you watched that movie?" Aurelie asked.

"At least eight", Gabriel said.

"Gabe's got a Betamax player at his house", Leon added.

Celine ran up behind Leon and tackled him in a hug, slipping the "sword" out of his hand. "Aurelie, catch!" she said, throwing it to her sister. Leon play-fought back, but not hard, and Celine managed to wiggle into his arms, leaning the two of them up against his car. Leon seemed startled at his good fortune. Aurelie turned to throw the sword back to her sister, but stopped. Gabriel caught a brief look of disappointment flicker across her face. "Maybe we should leave them be", she said.

They wandered over to lean against the wall again. "If they're busy", Aurelie said hesitantly, "what about us?"

Gabriel sighed. "What -about- us?"

"Aren't you interested in me?" She looked up at him through her eyelashes. It was almost perfectly done. It was also a dance that Gabriel knew far too well from the society coquettes he saw so often. It was almost unfair to play it with her, especially when he knew from those little side glances at Leon that she thought she'd already lost.

Instead he turned to face the lights of the town, then looked at her over his shoulder. "You're nice, and very sweet and pretty, but there will only ever be one girl for me." It was the truth.

She stilled at that, and looked at him with a far more honest gaze. "Really? I didn't know. Who's the lucky girl?"

"I don't know. I haven't met her yet", he admitted sheepishly.

Aurelie stifled a snicker, then a snort. Her shoulders relaxed. "You really are a unique kind of guy, Gabe."

"Thanks, I think?" He turned to face her again. "Besides. I know where you really want to be, and with who." He gestured pointedly with his eyes over Aurelie's shoulder, to where her sister was making out with Leon.

Aurelie blushed. "...yeah. I didn't hide it very well, did I?".

"You hid it well enough that only the wrong guy noticed", Gabriel smiled. "Maybe you should fix that."

She looked into his face with more gentleness than he was expecting. "No hard feelings?"

"No."

She grinned. "Sorry about this, then". She took a step back from him and called over her shoulder in a fake whiny kind of pout-voice, "Leeeeeon, Gabe doesn't want to plaaaaaay. Can I join yooouuur club?"

Leon and Celine both looked up from their kissing and at her like they'd forgotten she was still there. Then Leon grinned and stretched out one arm towards her. "Sure. Plenty of room over here."

Aurelie slipped Gabriel a wink, then ran over and slipped into Leon's waiting arm. The two sisters began kissing up the side of his neck. After a minute someone, it wasn't clear who, clicked the car door open and the three of them climbed into the back seat, shutting the door firmly behind them.

It was going to be either a long wait or a long walk home. Gabriel picked up the second antenna from where Aurelie had left it on the wall and began a two-handed _combat de canne_ drill. One of the basic ones, but he needed to drill it until it was without thought, and the antenna were about the right length and springiness. Once he'd done that drill about eight times, he tried a new drill that Anton had taught him the weekend before. Around about when his makeshift _cannes_ tangled with each other for the fourth time, he saw lights and heard engines coming up the hill. A minute or two later, two cars pulled up, teenagers hanging out of the windows, music turned up to 11.

"Gabe!" one called. "Thought we might find you guys up here. Where's Leon?"

Gabriel gestured to the car. "He's busy."

There was a burst of laughter and a cheer or two, and one of the cars reversed suddenly then pulled forward so its headlights were shining straight into the back window of Leon's car. They honked the horn and yelled "LEON! LEON!".

A fist rose up from the back seat, and slowly extended a thick, hairy middle finger. A moment later, two daintier hands rose up, one either side, each sporting a perfectly shaped hot-pink fingernail on their extended middle fingers.

"Huh? Who's he with?"

Gabriel just grinned. "Twins", he said.

The honking and yelling and cheering went on for a full minute after _that_ revelation. Then the guy who'd called out to Gabriel first said "Hey, they're going to be a while, huh. Want a lift back down the hill?"

"I'd love one. Think you can drop me near the cinema?"

"Sure. Squeeze in!"

The cars took off in a burst of dirt and dust on the gravel, heading back to town.

* * *

"No hard feelings".

The words echoing in his head, Gabriel closed the sketchbook on yet another drawing of the same thing. He really needed to finish up his fashion portfolio so that he could submit it to a couple of companies he'd like to get some work experience or even actual work with. Try as he might to work on a different idea though, Gabriel was still struck by that image of the three fists giving all of them - the cars, the yells and honks, the whole world - all the finger. And he'd appreciated Aurelie's honesty. Once she'd realised the game was up, instead of redoubling her efforts she'd just gone straight for the truth. It was naïve of her, but somehow so real.

Then the idea finally, _finally_ took form.

He went to the town's fabric shop and found some simple jersey fabric in the exact shade of that fingernail polish. Cutting two oversized singlets in the twins' size was fairly straight forward, he had long ago memorised the basic pattern for t-shirts and singlets. He got a wooden pallet from behind the supermarket when the forklift guy was on break, and used the planks to make a screenprinting frame. An art supplies shop was able to sell him opaque white fabric printing paint, and screen material for the frame. It took a few sketches, but eventually he had the design exactly the way he wanted it, and cut it into thick paper.

The day after he'd finished the singlets, he put them into a paper bag and headed to the centre of town. Leon was near the icecream shop. Both Celine and Aurelie were with him, roller skating in circles around him. "Leon!" Gabriel called out. "Celine! Aurelie! I have something for you!". The girls spun to the side to lose speed, then changed direction and headed straight for him. He resisted the urge to run away, instead clutching the bag a little tighter.

"Can we see?" Aurelie asked. He tossed her the bag. She caught it and reached in, pulling out a hot pink singlet. "This looks great, Gabe! Did you make it?"

"I did, and I printed them too."

The two girls shrugged a singlet on each over their white T-shirts and grey stonewashed jeans. As he'd intended, the singlets hung about to mini-skirt-length on them, neckline hanging very low and showing off the white shirt underneath. The fact that they were a perfect colour match to the rollerskate wheels was a bonus. Aurelie spun in a circle on her skates. "What do you think?"

Leon saw the back of the singlet, and burst out laughing. Gabriel had carefully printed in solid block-white a fist with its middle finger extended. He'd left the fingernail just as an outline, so that the singlet gave it its colour – the same colour as the twins' own nail polish.

Celine pulled a Polaroid camera out of her backpack and handed it to Gabriel. "Take a photo of us, please?"

Gabriel took two. He gave one to Leon and the girls, showing them squeezed up against each other smiling happily in the bright summer's light, and put the other in his pocket.

* * *

Three weeks later, he sat across from an interview panel with his portfolio open on the table between them, thinking how to phrase his answer to their question. "I think that timeless styles are important", he began. "They allow for greater elegance and grace, they give dignity. But for that to be true, you have to have a balance. Something that makes fashion youthful, in the moment, about now. Colour and texture that the timeless styles can stand out against." He took a breath. "If I were to change anything about your current lines, I would add a line especially for young people, that captured their world right at this moment. They don't want to be timeless, because they already live right now." He tapped the page in front of him and pushed it towards the interviewers, who leaned in to look at the details.

There, against a swatch of pink fabric and a few pencilled sketches, was a taped in Polaroid. The interviewers flipped through a few more pages, looking at the details and the notes that went with the designs, then turned back to the Polaroid and looked at it for a while. "You certainly have an eye for what's in, I must admit", said one of the interviewers. "We'll look at your portfolio, interview the others we have, and let you know in a few days if you were successful at gaining this position. If you win it, though, you will be working harder than you ever did at school. Can you do it?"

They all looked back down at the photo.

It showed a beach-side street, with a young man with curly brown hair facing away from the camera. He wore a royal blue sweatshirt with a picture of Michel Platini printed on the back in navy and red. He had each arm casually over the shoulders of a girl on either side of him. Both girls were on rollerskates, and wore a hot-pink singlet with a rude hand gesture printed on it in strong, clear white shapes. The three of them walked and skated away into the distance, never looking back.

"I can", Gabriel answered firmly. "Thank you for interviewing me." He closed his portfolio and handed it to them, then left.

* * *

 _A/N: The end! Thanks for reading this! I love reviews and comments, and I know this story is a little unusual for the fandom but it was fun to write Young!Gabriel anyhow. This was going to be a (longish) one-shot but after I lost all my notes and plotwork for it for the *second* time I started posting each section as soon as I'd written it, just in case :-) so it ended up probably a little longer than I'd originally intended. Thanks for following along!_

 _Reviews: The site is telling me that there are three more reviews, thank you :-) but I can't see them! To the guest who posted, I saw your review briefly when I approved it (before it vanished) so I'll try to reply from memory. Class is a really complicated thing, and despite France in the 1980s being one of the more egalitarian societies around (way better than the UK), you can't ever completely escape the fact that most people only want to associate with those they consider "worthy", which leads to stratification. Gabriel's job is to negotiate along that boundary, and it's not easy :-)._

 _As to the bromance you mentioned, I deliberately left Leon and Gabe's relationship a little ambiguous. I think that men's relationships with each other can be pretty complex at times and that there should be a diversity of male relationships visible in the media rather than always falling back on simplified tropes. I also think that Gabriel bonds fast and deep when he falls, with both friends and lovers. Sometimes you just know about someone, right? Then there's the thing where the 1980s was a weird time to be gay because of the AIDS scare. If you didn't live through that, I don't think I can describe how much of an impact this inimical, incurable, killer disease had and how much fear it caused. But most of all, I couldn't define Leon and Gabe's relationship exactly because tbh I don't know myself. Neither of them would tell me._


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